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There's a few reasons: You get a letter so suppliers can say "as featured on Grand Designs," which allows you to negotiate discounts Suppliers don't want to look bad on national telly, so give you better treatment If we Airbnb the second building, then we've just got a free advert on national TV It'll be nice for the kids to be able to watch and one day hopefully show their kids The barn is a non-designated heritage asset, and so it'll be nice for future generations to know about this stage of its evolution It's much less work for us than trying to self-document the journey as a vlog or something The wife works in interior design and interior architecture, so it'll be great promotion for her career We used to watch Grand Designs when we first got together nearly twenty years ago, thinking "I'll never be able to afford to do that." So it's kinda nice being able to say that now we've 'done it' (obviously assuming the project succeeds!)

Nah. What I've learned this far in the project is that I do a better job than most (but not all) of the professionals we've paid. If I have to do the legwork to then hand it over to someone qualified to rubber-stamp, that's better than spending weeks waiting for someone who has multiple priorities and little incentive to come up with novel solutions. It seems the construction industry is full of people that only do things the way they've always done them, and think everything else is impossible.

The hive mind on ‘t ‘ub regards SAP as currently necessary but useless and counter-productive. Will Ecology accept the PHPP result instead? I second your thoughts re typical contractors / consultants. There are some v good ones, but for run-of-the-mill ones, I figure I can usually equal them the first time out and then do a better job the second time. Sure, there are some skilled trades e.g. plastering, cabinet making etc where I figure I don’t. Also, you know what you want - so you avoid the communication problems and having to argue them back from their standard ways of working. Sometimes the latter takes months. Also, I’m quite pernickety so I’ll make the extra effort to get it right whereas it’s not the contractor’s house so they usually don’t. The problem then is that there’s a tendency to do everything, so I’m trying to be more conscious of supervising the bits more closely that I care about.

fancoils > Aircon Too many positives vs split system. Just oversize them if you have a leaky house and/or poor glazing etc Small ones in our place kept bedrooms at 21/2 24x7 with 34c outside. Cost virtually nothing to run as there is huge excess of solar and night-time is cheap rate in any case. If our tesla Powerwall hadn't gone bang that was enough to spin the heat pump all night.

would have sold you my comfopost for half price! It's utterly crap. Zero noticeable difference with it on or off at any of the terminals.

You must have missed above. We now have a 4G smart meter, all working. Now on Octopus Cosy. We are have an octopus mini instead of home display.

@Drellingore, I used the Stroma SAP software to do my “as designed” submission in 2021. This was a free download at the time. Here is a good thread discussing various approaches to SAP This thread links to the current download I think. Then this is another good discussion about using the Stroma software. You needed to edit the PDF output to remove the DRAFT watermark.

In a normal house (as @Nickfromwales put it a drafty bag - o - shit) you are correct, in an airtight one, you need room sealed and external air inlet. If you can justify or are required to have MVHR by building regs, you really need external air. Plus you are not allowed to install said stove in a room where an extract terminal is present. As when you open door to reload the wood, combustion and flue gases could be drawn into room.

I always suggest to (tell) my customers to sit down with the builder, before they do anything, and set out your station. The builder will otherwise decide, if you appear to be a walk-over on day 1. They will assume fast=good; you can say "reasonable pace with a better eye of the quality and finish may cost another 5-10%, but I ACCEPT". Tell them that you're going to ask to have a framing level placed on the walls after they've been laid on, so they know that shite won't fly. Assume they'll do a good job, and you'll quickly find why folk say "assumption is the mother of all feck ups". Speak to the builders, they're human at the end of the day . Let the builder know that you're approachable, eg if more work needs doing to deliver a better end result. Employing a general builder, because their quote was the favoured one, isn't any means of a measure or guarantee as to what will be delivered, this needs to be managed (expectations from both sides) by you; if you wish to stand any chance of getting what you expect (want), then say this at the outset, not complain afterwards if you didn't ask what the quality / workmanship would be like. FYI, cement and skim are finishers not fillers, so a wall that's seriously out of plumb should probably have been dot & dabbed vs scratched and skimmed.

Interested to know why you volunteered.

One that has a whacking great duct that has to go to atmosphere? 180mm on the one in my sons attic room, but it's so cold up there atm that you could keep meat; whilst the rest of us squelch about in the ridiculous heatwave..... No wonder my other kids go and kip up there when the sun finally shows its face.

I've used Inkbird DIN-rail controllers a few times and they're good kit.

We had 30 degs yesterday - cool by England standards, but we still pulled 50+kWh of heat out the house by UFH run in cooling mode. Including heating DHW, used all of 11kWh of electric, all provided by the sun FoC via solar PV.